No clue what to call this

[shadowkat]

There's a rather excellent critique of a NY Times review of Game of Thrones by tightropegirl on lj,
(otherwise known as Doris Egan - the sci-fi writer and television scribe of such various television series as House, Homicide Life on the Streets, Dark Angel, Smallville, True Calling, and most recently the new season of Torchwood).

Go here: http://tightropegirl.livejournal.com/20679.html

I read the review Egan critiques, and I agree, Gina Bellafante basically makes an ass of herself.


Egan quotes CS Lewis who states:

It is very dangerous to write about a kind [of literature] you hate. Hatred obscures all distinctions. I don’t like detective stories and therefore all detective stories look much alike to me: if I wrote about them I should therefore infallibly write drivel. Criticism of kinds, as distinct from criticism of works, cannot of course be avoided…but it should not masquerade as criticism of individual works. Many reviews are useless because, while purporting to condemn the book, they only reveal the reviewer’s dislike of the kind of which it belongs.

Let bad tragedies be censured by those who love tragedy, and bad detective stories by those who love the detective story. Then we shall learn their real faults. Otherwise we shall find epics blamed for not being novels, farces for not being high comedies, novels by James for lacking the swift action of Smollett. Who wants to hear a particular claret abused by a fanatical teetotaler, or a particular woman by a confirmed misogynist?”

I've seen a lot of critics fall into this trap. They go to an action film such as say Iron Man and get all upset that it is about a superhero and has long action scenes. Uhm Hello? It's IRON MAN!
What did you expect? Same with fantasy - if you don't like fantasy, folks, you aren't going to like Game of Thrones. It's a given. I don't like procedurals and cop shows - they tend to bore me and there's nothing worse than a legal procedural, also documentary style situation comedies give me a headache - do you see me writing reviews of these? NO! I know why I don't like them. I know why other people do.

What made me want to hit Bellafante and applaud Egan, was this bit:

Bellafante: “While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s…”

Egan: Yes, somewhere on the Earth, in some neglected and lonely corner, there may be two or three women who read such books. Unlikely though it seems.

(Me: Hee. Go Egan! I hate to break this to you Bellafante darling, but the people on my livejournal and online that I know of who read George RR Martin are mostly if not all female! Just like the vast majority of people online that I know who love Tolkien, are, gasp, FEMALE! Yes, shocking, I know. The person who recommended I read George RR Martin was a woman in France. We really mustn't generalize it makes us look like idiots. And yes, we actually read him not because of the sex scenes, but because he creates well-rounded and interesting characters who resonate long after the story is told. That play with the mind. Along with intensely detailed stories, with intensely detailed plots.)

Bellafante: “…I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first.”

Egan: Someone else will have to untangle this. It’s nice that we’re getting it straight what women read, though, right? In those chick book clubs?

****

Okay, here, I can actually assist. I used to be in a rather cool couple of book clubs, before they eventually imploded. The first was killed by Don Dellilo's Underworld. The second by Oprah Winfrey chick-lit. Prior to the chick-lit crap, we were reading genre fiction - fantasy, sci-fi, noir, by both men and women writers. Then one of the women decided we should read dysfunctional contemporary literature where everyone whines endlessly about their navel and the book club died.

I've read both Tolkien and Lorrie Moore. Lorrie Moore - I read in 1997, when I first moved to NYC. The book of hers that I read was Who Will Run the Frog Hospital - all I remember from that book is well, the title and something about someone going to a mental ward driven slowly nuts by her humdrum life. I found it very quotable for a bit, then promptly forgot it. Moore like a lot of contemporary female and male literary writers got off on gazing closely at her navel and whining about it. Poetic prose, but not very memorable. If you want to read that stuff - go read Collette - she was better at it, and had more to say. So for that matter is Virigina Woolfe and Kate Chopin, and Gilman. Also Anne Taylor. I read the Hobbit, once, in the 6th grade or in 1980. So that would be about 30 years ago? Moore - maybe 14. Tolkien -30. Guess which one I vividly remember? I vividly remember everything about the Hobbit. I loved that book. And there is so much to talk about regarding it. It is an allegory on warfare, it discusses environmentalism, it discusses power and the appeal of power...there are so many issues, so many things to analyze. It's book club heaven. Classes have been taught on the Hobbit. Essays written.

Moore? Not so much. All she writes about is rich white girl's suburban angst. You can find that on a table in Barnes & Noble - there's about 20 books with various literary names for selection.
Bellafante is not a woman I want to know - the desire to kick her would be a bit overwhelming.

Ugh. I'm being tempted to subscribe to HBO again. Does not help that they are developing American Gods for a fantasy series.

Comments

[eilowyn.livejournal.com]

That Lewis quote really struck me - as I am occasionally struck when reading your journal - that the reason why I can't differentiate between the brooding vampire heroes in all the vampire shows - Stefan Salvatore, Bill Compton and Angel - is because I don't like those brooding vampire heroes. I don't like brooding heroes at all unless they're written by a Bronte sister. Broody vampire heroes are my detective novels - I don't like them, so I have no business critiquing them.

As for the subject of the post - yes, there are some wishy-washy novels written for a female audience that you don't remember after you've read them. I fully agree with your assessment of the comment. As for Bellafonte, I was honestly insulted by her review of A Game of Thrones, and by her assertion that women wouldn't tune in unless there was plenty of bed hopping. Egan nails it, and so does Martin, in the quotes of his I've been seeing reblogged (and have been reblogging) on tumblr all weekend.

From eleusis_walks's tumblr:

"The startling assertion in the TIMES review that women could not possibly like fantasy unless a lot of graphic sex was added to it (??) has prompted me to break my “no comment” rule. At least to extent of this post. I see this morning that legions of female fantasy readers and self-proclaimed “geek girls” and “scifi chicks” have risen up all over the internet to say all the things that I’m too polite and too busy to say. And a lot more besides. I’d link to their blogs and posts here, but it would take hours. Google will lead you to them, if you’re interested. It would seem that so many outraged emails and posts poured into the TIMES that they had to shut down the comments section for the review. … thank you, geek girls! I love you all." - George R. R. Martin

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Angeria linked to Martin's entire reply below. Very satsifying read. Particularly this comment..."if my work is only read by boys, I'd like to know where all these boys with breasts that come to my readings...actually come from."

Highly offensive and sexist review. I wanted to kick her after reading it. But apparently she got her ass kicked already, big time. LOL! Professional critics must hate the internet.

[ann1962]

decided we should read dysfunctional contemporary literature where everyone whines endlessly about their navel

Oh man, my book club. Or whines endlessly about their husband. Every book has been about bad marriages.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Yep, pretty much why I gave up on book clubs. They whine about their husbands or their boyfriends or parents in order to understand or identify with the dysfunctional whining on the page.
These people need to read a bit of fantasy...get outside of themselves.

[ann1962]

I tried Ender's Game one month, and I think it was considered the worst pick of all time. One woman picks non-fiction, but those are always about the issues in Africa. No fun reading. The only month I truly enjoy is the poetry picks, we did it a week or two ago, and another woman actually found poetry about bad marriages. I was astounded. Her pick for next month at her house is Parallel Lives. Good book, but not one I'd pick for a book group.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I wonder sometimes if all book clubs are like this? Mine was or it became that way eventually. And my mother who is currently in two - complains about her's repeatedly. She's really tired of reading books about dysfunctional marriages or parents.
In her club - she has one woman who always recommends non-fiction or fictional books about the Middle East - which like Africa - aren't that fun to read. This past month they were supposed to read the new Barbara Kingslover novel but it put everyone to sleep - so they switched to something else.

I joined one back in 1998 - which last 5-6 years, rather long for a book club actually especially in NYC, that focused on genre books. It was started by a genre book store in the neighborhood that focused on well, genre books. Two book clubs were started by the men who ran that store and I joined both of them, then the store went out of business. The cool literary book club that met in a bar imploded due to Underworld and Anderson's biography of Che - long before the book store went out of business. The other book club survived past that point, but it changed from genre (where reading Ender's Game would not have been an issue) to well..reading whatever book Oprah selected. I got so tired of buying and reading books I disliked, that I finally quit.

Interestingly enough both my book club (NYC) and my mother's (South Caronlina) had someone suggest reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged - which I successfully talked mine out of, and my mother talked her's out of doing.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Here's the link to GRRM's reply (http://grrm.livejournal.com/210874.html).

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I loved his reply - thank you. And the 325 comments. I think Bellafante needs to spend a bit more time reading blogs on the internet outside of her own and the NY Times.